| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| VIKARMA - THE KEY TO KARMA-YOGA |
| Desirelessness too, is a quality of the mind. As a means of creating this, the pursuit of svadharma is not
enough; other aids are needed. To light a lamp, one needs not only the oil and the wick, but a flame. When the
lamp is lit, the darkness disappears. How is this lamp to be lit? For this, we need to purify the mind. By self
examination, we have to cleanse the mind of its dirt. At the end of the Third Chapter, the Lord gave this
important suggestion, and from it the Forth Chapter takes its origin.
2. In the Gita, the word "karma" (action) is used in the sense of svadharma. Our eating, drinking, sleeping, are all actions, but it is not these actions that the Gita refers to when it talks of karma. Karma there means the practice of svadharma. But in order to achieve freedom from desire through the practice of svadharma, something more is necessary - victory over kama and krodha, craving and anger. As long as the mind is not as pure and peaceful as the waters of the Ganga, desirelessness will not come to us. These actions performed to purify the mind, the Gita calls "vikarma." The three words, "karma", "vikarma" and "akarma", occurring in the Fourth Chapter, are of utmost importance. Karma is the concrete, outward action performed as svadharma. The participation of the chitta, the mind and heart, in this external act is "vikarma." We bow our heads to someone, but if, while we are doing this, the heart too does not bow, the external act is meaningless. |
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